Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has tightened the screws on its work-from-office policy, with some employees now seeing their final anniversary appraisals put on hold due to non-compliance with attendance rules in earlier quarters. The move signals a sharper push by India’s largest IT services company to enforce full-time office presence, even as much of the industry continues with hybrid models.
According to information reviewed by The Times of India, the decision affects employees who did not meet TCS’s work-from-office (WFO) requirements during specific quarters of the current financial year. For these employees, the appraisal process may have been completed at an operational level but has not been cleared by corporate, effectively freezing their performance outcomes for now. TCS did not respond to queries on the matter until the time of publication.
At TCS, final anniversary appraisals follow a structured annual cycle tied to an employee’s work anniversary. Eligible freshers typically receive a formal anniversary email once they complete a year, with the status also updated on the company’s internal portal, Ultimatix. It is worth noting that TCS had already discontinued final anniversary appraisals for lateral hires back in 2022, making the current action particularly relevant for fresher cohorts.
In at least one internal email cited in the report, employees were informed that while their anniversary appraisal exercise had been completed, it would not be processed further because of WFO non-compliance up to Q2 of FY26, covering the July to September 2025 period. The communication also carried a stronger warning: if the anniversary appraisal is not committed within the specified timeline due to continued non-compliance in subsequent quarters, the employee could be excluded from the FY26 banding cycle altogether, meaning no performance band would be released for that year.
Under normal circumstances, the anniversary appraisal process begins with a formal initiation from the organisation. The reporting manager then creates a goal sheet, which the employee reviews and submits after aligning expectations with the appraiser. Performance is assessed against goals and parameters tracked over the year, following which banding results are declared. With the latest enforcement, attendance compliance has effectively become a gatekeeper for this entire cycle.
TCS has been clear about its expectations on office attendance. Employees are required to work from the office five days a week, making the company one of the first among India’s top IT firms to take such a firm stance. While many peers continue to mandate two or three days of in-office work, TCS has gone a step further by linking both performance outcomes and variable pay to physical attendance.
To support the policy, the company updated its WFO exception framework last year. As per an internal note reported earlier, employees can cite personal emergencies for up to six days per quarter, with no carry-forward of unused days. The system also accounts for operational challenges such as space constraints, allowing employees to submit up to 30 exception requests in a single entry. Network-related issues can be logged through five entries at one go. However, TCS has drawn a hard line against bulk uploads or backend adjustments for attendance exceptions, closing off potential loopholes.
